


Emilia

by MJosephine10



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, and see where it goes, we're just going to have fun with this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28416207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJosephine10/pseuds/MJosephine10
Summary: I don't know what I'm feeling, but I believe / I was thinking 'bout making a comeback, back to me(Comeback, Carly Rae Jepsen)
Relationships: we will see - Relationship
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone always asked Emilia if she played basketball.

She enjoyed the sport in a vague way, but the truth was, no. She didn’t. But she looked the part so exactly that the assumption that she was a proficient—at least college-level—athlete of the sport was held by everyone who first met her with as much certainty as if they had been told this fact by Emilia herself.

It was an understandable, if not very sensitive, mistake. She was exceptionally tall with broad shoulders and big hands. Her hair fell to her shoulders in a blunt wave, the kind of blonde that is almost white were it not for the hint of rose-gold that colored it in certain lights. Her profile was striking; her aquiline nose took center stage though her generous mouth and high cheekbones were almost equally impossible to ignore. She was intimidating except to those who took the time to notice her soft blue eyes and slow, sweet smile.

She worked on the second floor of the office building, a bay window situated behind her. Maybe it was the natural light of the space or Emilia herself, but it was a kind of gathering place for the people of the office. There were a couple of guys who stopped by to talk sports. Despite Emilia’s general lack of interest, the conviction that on some level she would understand was hard for them to shake. And Emilia never minded. She listened more than she talked, but it was a very sympathetic kind of listening. She had a way of folding herself, all 6’2” of her, into her swivel office chair, hands wrapped around her knees as she nodded along to statistics and end of game plays, that invited conversation.

Sometimes the front help desk, Terry and Kate, stopped by on their way to and from running errands for the boss to chat and ask about Emilia’s three cats. And then there was Will from accounting. Will had warm brown eyes and a quick smile. He never said much, just asked questions for his crossword. If some people thought he didn’t need as much help as he asked for, Emilia never betrayed that she thought that.

But absolutely no one stopped by Emilia’s corner more than Jane.

Jane worked a little ways down from Emilia. She was part-Vietnamese, part-Italian, and roughly half Emilia’s size. They had started work in the office on the same day and, without either of them knowing exactly how it happened, had become best friends. Jane liked to sit on the edge of Emilia’s desk, feet swinging, while she chattered about her life and her plans for the future, all of which involved Emilia. It was understood between the both of them that wherever one went the other would go too.

Jane was ambitious and didn’t plan on working in the office forever. She wanted to open her own bakery. She had drive and dreams in equal measure. Her dreams were soft and covered in (edible) glitter, but anyone who thought that she was incapable of transforming those dreams into reality one day was kidding themselves. She was also remarkably intuitive. Jane had never assumed that Emilia played sports of any kind. And the day that Jane discovered that Emilia also liked to bake the friendship was sealed.

Emilia’s taste in baking tended more towards the experimental than Jane. One time she had won a lentil contest with a lentil cheesecake that beat out the reigning champion, a three-layered chocolate and lentil cake. She was very proud of her prize, a mini carved lentil with her name engraved on the base.

It was in connection with this accomplishment that Jane approached her at the end of a workday in the week before Christmas.

“Emiliaaa!” She trilled as she approached her, a whiff of peppermint seeming to waft in with her. Or maybe Emilia just imagined that because of the gigantic snowflake on her sweater. Jane was always the maximum amount of coziness and holiday cheer. “I need you to join a baking competition with me.”

Emilia processed this information slowly, blinking a little like an owl.

“Yep, I’m in.” She unfolded herself from her chair so she could clear off the corner of her desk that was Jane’s usual perch. “Tell me more.”

Jane settled into her corner, pulling her long, glossy ponytail over her shoulder as she did so. Behind them both the sun was sinking slowly in a tangerine sky.

“It’s in Seattle and it’s around Valentine’s Day. It’s a pie competition. There’s some big name baker who wins it every year apparently. He got tired of having no competition so THIS YEAR he’s inviting people from all over the country to participate, saying he’ll even cover the costs of travel for bakers if they can’t afford it. Honestly, he sounds like a jackass. Some hotshot rich kid looking for attention. But it sounds fun, right??”

Jane could have been persuasive for several minutes more but she knew from the look on Emilia’s face that she was already calculating the days off she could use around February 14th.

“Oh, don’t worry. You’d only have to take one or two days off. And it wouldn’t interfere with your summer competition.”

“I’m not very good at pies,” Emilia began, a hint of worry in her tone. “You’re the real pie expert.”

“Nonsense.” Jane waved the worry away instantly. “You are the most natural baker I know and you can practice. We’ll practice together over Christmas! Besides, it’ll be a challenge. And you _love_ a challenge.”

Emilia’s smile widened slowly. She had a smile that completely transformed her face but few people ever saw the _full_ effect of the transformation because she did it so rarely.

Jane saw it all the time.

“I really, _really_ do.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jane’s apartment, like everything else about her, was extremely cozy. The ceilings were pitched, giving the space an attic feeling, and the walls were a soft cream, making the space light. The color scheme of her kitchen, in many ways the apex of the coziness, was blue and white with gentle tangerine accents popping up in unexpected places. She didn’t plan it that way; it was just a reflection of who she was. Bright splashes of color punctuating a palate of peaceful hues.

A bowl of oranges blazed on the counter and a tangerine ceramic pitcher glowed in its place beneath a white cabinet. There was a deep window seat next to the tiny breakfast nook. She had chosen the apartment for the window seat, had fought for it in fact, and rejoiced when she had won the battle. Blue and white patterned curtains framed the second story window out of which the blue mist of a gentle evening was falling.

It was Christmas Eve and Emilia and Jane were practicing for the pie competition and preparing for Christmas at the same time. Today’s pies were a pecan and a chocolate cream, both old family recipes of Jane’s.

Emilia had taken the lead today on the baking, Jane having done so yesterday. They always moved in a rhythm like this, their joint endeavors always more a dance than a structured plan. She moved around the tiny kitchen with surprising grace considering her height, her hair braided into a low crown at the nape of her neck. Jane had a matching crown but hers ran across the top of her head. Emilia was a master hair braider—another of her secret talents.

“Alright,” Jane said, sitting at the tiny kitchen table with her laptop. “Time for some stalking.”

She pulled up the information about the pie contest in Seattle.

_The pie contest is hosted by Jared Slovinski who has won the Valentine’s Day Seattle Pie Contest every year for the past three years_ , she read aloud.

“Jared? His name had to be Jared?” Jane laughed. Emilia shook her head in quiet disapproval.

They loved their slightly old-fashioned names and between each other always judged anyone with a more modern sounding name. Especially one that sounded like it belonged to a frat guy.

_Jared has studied baking at the School of Bakery and Patisserie Paris. He worked professionally for three years in a French restaurant but has since retired. He is studying to take over his father’s business. He has decided to open the competition up to amateur bakers._

“Well, isn’t that just nice of his worship—to let _amateurs_ come. The generosity.”

Emilia’s face broke into a smile. She didn’t have to look up from her mixing bowl to know the exact expression on Jane’s face, the delighted glow of playful outrage.

“There’s a picture! Emilia, come look!”

Emilia wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron and came to see.

The eyes that looked back at her were dark and deep-set. There was a bulldog’s tenacity in the square jaw and the dark hair that fell over the forehead didn’t seem rebellious so much as angry.

“He looks hungry,” Jane giggled. “Someone needs to prove themselves.”

“You know what I think?” Emilia asked thoughtfully.

“What?” Jane rejoined.

“I think he should prepare to lose.”

“Damn right.” Jane recognized the quiet steel in Emilia’s voice and approved of it greatly. In most people’s minds Jane was the competitive one, always ready for a fight, always sparkling and challenging and responding. But Emilia had a competitive streak that ran far deeper than Jane’s. It was never- bitter founded as it was in sheer love of the challenge of doing something to the best of her abilities. But there was a ruthlessness to it that took those who only saw the gentleness of her manners by surprise.

“Ooh!” she said a moment later. “They have a list of people who are competing!”

Jane and Emilia had applied and been accepted as participants in the competition. They had both submitted photos of previous work (baked goods), previously won prizes, and a short essay on why they were passionate about baking.

Jane had rolled her eyes hard at this requirement and also dashed off two brilliant (and brief) essays for herself and Emilia. Not that Emilia couldn’t have written her own and done it quite well. But she was slow and methodical and Jane and she had agreed that that concentration was better spent in honing her baking skills.

“Anyone we know?” Emilia asked.

“I don’t think so.” She scanned the list closely. “Oh wait.”

She gasped. She raised a shocked face to Emilia, eyes once again round and glowing.

“That _bastard_.”

“Who?”

“Ethan is entering.”

“Ethan from downstairs?”

If Jane met and loved Emilia on day one, she had met and hated Ethan on day two. Never one to do anything by halves, her hatred for him had burned as long and steadily as her love for Emilia had blossomed. No one knew exactly what he had done to earn her hatred. He was quiet and competent, not by any means a trouble maker, and yet something about him infuriated Jane and between the two of them a slow-burning competition relentlessly simmered. A competition based on nothing of substance but fueled by the similarities of their jobs in the office. They did the same work for different branches of the office.

Emilia privately thought Jane sometimes looked for reasons to fight him, at others she thought she could catch a glimmer of dancing delight in his blue eyes when he’d beaten Jane to some deadline and was witnessing her outrage. 

“Unbelievable! I can’t believe he would do this. He doesn’t even bake!”

“Actually I think he does. He’s the one who’s always leaving boxes of cookies in the break room downstairs.”

Jane was not mollified by this information.

“That little snake could have told me. He knew we were entering”

Emilia choked back a laugh that bubbled up in her at Jane’s outrage and at her suggestion that he should have told her. Emilia did not think any outrage would have been assuaged had Ethan told her in advance.

“Well, we know what this means, don’t we.”

“Practice twice as hard?” Emilia grinned.

“ _Practice_ _twice as hard_.”


	3. Chapter 3

The evening sky was dark blue when Ethan packed up his things to leave for the weekend. He was flying home to see his mom who lived in Chicago. He tried to go at least once a month but he’d missed last month. He was more anxious than usual to get to the airport.

For years, it had been just the two of them in a tiny apartment. They had been each other’s best friends ever since his dad had left when he was two. His mom had loved to bake; tiny Ethan had loved baseball. They’d spent their weekends going to watch the games at Wrigley Field. Not in the stands of course, they couldn’t afford it. But in a nearby park that broadcast the games for people to watch. They’d take the cookies or brownies or lemon bars they’d baked the night before and park out on a picnic blanket. For Ethan, baking was inextricably tied up with baseball and those afternoons with his mom. He could feel the excitement of the fans screaming for the players and feel the Chicago wind wrap around him every time he bit into a sugar cookie.

She wasn’t doing so well, his mom. Not since high school. She’d been sick on and off ever since his senior year. He’d wanted to attend a community college so he could be close to her but she’d refused and insisted that he go to Stanford, his dream and goal since middle school. When he got in, she’d refused to consider anything except plans for his future there. He’d gone, torn between excitement and worry.

He vowed to come back whenever he could. But between the rush of school and work and her consistent downplaying of the seriousness of her condition he hadn’t gone back as much as he wished he had.

He’d gotten his current job in Missouri right out of college and hadn’t felt like he could tempt fate by not taking it. It was still a plane ride away from his mom but there was nothing in this city for her. She needed the climate of Colorado, or at least wanted it so badly it became a need. For now, he went home whenever he could.

He shifted his leather bag to his shoulder and saw the edge of the flyer for the baking competition out of the corner pocket. Kristen, their boss, had put up flyers for the competition all around the office, knowing the number of people in the office who baked.

The ad conjured up the outrage on Jane’s face when she’d asked him why he had entered the competition. He smiled at the sight of it, seeing her sparkling eyes and dark hair in his mind. He liked Jane. He liked setting her off; she was especially adorable when she was mad. He liked the wrinkle in her forehead that total concentration always produced on her face. And he liked her tenacious, endless love for Emilia. She was always talking about Emilia to him, telling him all of her accomplishments, how she was so much smarter and more talented than anyone knew. She never said “so much more talented than you” but her tone implied it.

Jane disliked Ethan and he knew it. In their first month at the job, they had presented their boss the same idea at different points in the same week. It was an actual, true coincidence and Ethan had truly been innocent of the fact that Jane was going to present the same idea to Kristen a few days later. But Kristen had credited both of them and Jane had been furious. When they showed up to an office party each with homemade macaroons that had been the seal on her bubbling hatred of him.

It was a completely one-sided hatred but Ethan wasn’t sorry about its existence. It provided distance. He was not in a space to examine his own feelings for her. Plus, he enjoyed the sparkle in her eyes when she was upset. It was a frothy, generous kind of irritation, that to his view was only skin-deep.

No, he didn’t worry about Jane’s hatred. He had other things to worry about.

He picked up the flyer and his eye narrowed in on the offer of a $2000 prize for the first place winner. He was going to win that money and take his mom to see the Canadian Rockies. She would never accept him using his own paycheck to take her somewhere but pie prize money? She could be persuaded.

They would practice over Christmas. Ethan was a skilled baker but his mother was nothing short of a genius. She had a knack for making the simplest of recipes delicious and there was always something different about her work that set it apart from other bakers. Ethan knew that she tweaked the recipes but could never quite catch how she did it. She insisted it was only love. There was no doubt that it helped that love was her motive. But necessity had driven her genius to quicker production and her inventiveness was spurred on by the fact that she was working on a tight, single-income budget. She knew how to stretch ingredients; she knew the ins and outs of where you could cut corners and where you absolutely couldn’t.

And she was quick.

There was a time component to the competition. She would be invaluable to Ethan in preparing for it. He was going to introduce it to her lightly, putting no pressure on her. She never worked very well under pressure for her or for him. She’d always burned the pies she’d made him for school bakesales. He’d learned early on not to tell her the reason he needed a pie. She did her best when he said “Hey Mom, can we bake today?”

He thought of her in her kitchen, covered in flour, some of it having managed to coat even her hair. He saw her face tightened with carefully concealed pain that he’d been able to see more clearly as he’d gotten older.

And his heart constricted at the thought of one day losing her.

He finished the last bit of clearing off of his desk, leaving it neat and immaculate. He turned and noticed that Jane’s desk was covered in stacks of papers. Jane could be as neat as the best of them but her mind was always seven steps ahead of her organization and things always spilled out of her with more speed than she knew how to deal with it. It was her own brand of genius.

He knew he’d have to work hard if he wanted to beat her at this thing.

* * *

Jane watched Emilia leave their baking session with the sadness she always felt when she had to watch Emilia leave. She waved from the window as Emilia turned to smile at her from the parking lot below. Emilia looked warm and cheerful even in the cold. And she folded herself into her tiny car with her usual too-tall grace.

Jane loved her so fiercely that she sometimes teared up at the thought of her. She loved her for a million reasons and none at all, the way of all true love. But one of the million reasons was the way Jane felt about herself when she was with her.

Emilia was not a talkative person and not particularly gregarious. But without saying much at all she made Jane feel like the most sparkly person in the world. She felt confident and invincible when she was with her. And the feeling was a high.

Jane was capable and talented and quick-thinking. She had an eye for beauty and a gift for warmth. She was intense but practical. And she had dreams by the dozen. But there was an ocean of insecurity to go with her gifts and genius. And she felt relentlessly tossed about by the voices in her head that told her that her dreams would never be more than that far more than she ever let on.

Emilia had never said that she knew this or that she understood but Jane felt safer with her anyway. The voices were quieter. Or at least easier to dismiss. She’d always had friends but she’d always needed a best friend. Someone at the center of her life to keep her grounded. She’d never really known that until Emilia. In fact, it wasn’t until Emilia that Jane had even known how much she’d been looking for it.

She had always felt she had something to prove. There was no clear discernible reason for it. She had sometimes been bullied in school, for her height and on occasion for her heritage. Some kids had said some really awful things to her on that subject and she’d cried on the way home. But overall she’d been happy and successful in life and school. She made friends easily, she was successful at most of the things she put her mind to.

But the burning in her soul still almost consumed her sometimes.

It flared to life most deeply when she was confronted with Ethan. He felt like the embodiment of the worst fear of every one of her insecurities. His blue eyes seemed so smug; they seemed so full of delight at her misery. He always seemed ahead of her in some indefinable way, like with that blasted presentation he’d beat her to. She had been furious, convinced he had cheated.

But deep down she knew he hadn’t. She knew he was good at his job. And he was good looking too. In an effortless way that drove her crazy. The kind of good looking that looks good with messy hair and a shirt that isn’t perfectly ironed. Jane tried hard at everything she did and Ethan did not, she was convinced. But he had such calm self-assurance anyway and it ate away at her constantly.

She wanted to win this competition for the satisfaction of beating him. She had to beat him. But even more than that she had to win this competition for herself to prove she was good enough.

Good enough to one day open her own business. Good enough to belong. Good enough to finally quiet the voices in her own head.

Jane wrapped herself in one of her scarves, a medium-sized soft blue number that on her looked like a slightly too large shawl. She curled up in the corner of her couch.

Jane loved a challenge in all of its sparkling glory; she loved excitement. But this was fueled by something different. Something about the wording of that stupid flyer had gotten under her skin. Something about Jared’s highfalutin background had set her off and doubled her own insecurity that she had never gone to cooking school. And of course Ethan entering.

She swore out loud in her tiny apartment, the word echoing up to the ceiling. Jane, when alone, had the mouth of a sailor.

It was so galling, she realized, because baking had been hers and Emilia’s. Just theirs. Fresh from college and its particular lonely pain they’d discovered baking and then each other. And in their respective kitchens their friendship had been forever sealed. And now to have these boys intrude in on it: Jared as a vague and far-off irritating reminder that some people had it all while others did not. And Ethan as a reminder that sometimes your enemies had the same interests and loves as you did, a fact that was underrated in its skill to hurt and annoy.

_Why was the world so small?_ she grumbled to herself as she headed to the counter to make herself a pot of tea. Why did one always have to brush shoulders with one’s enemies in the sacred spaces of one’s deepest interests? Those were spaces for feeling safe and far away from the pains of everyday life. Not just another opportunity for hurt.

Well, it was too late, she reflected as she stirred sugar into her tea. They were in it now. 

* * *

From the start, Jared’s father had hated the idea of the amateur baking competition. Jared had gone through with it anyway, planning and organizing it with quiet stubbornness, but the disapproval had not waned. If Jared was going to bake at all, it should, his father thought, be only the best. By the best, for the best, of the best. That was what the School of Bakery and Patisserie in Paris had been all about. Jared hadn’t wanted to go but his father had insisted and had used his considerable influence as a wealthy stockbroker with powerful connections to get him into the selective school. It had been the same with his restaurant job in Paris—only the best for a Slovinski after all.

Jared hated that he’d achieved nothing on his own. That his last name and his father’s money had gotten him this far. Yes, he was aware that being the child of a rich father and hating it was a cliché. But he didn’t have many options that weren’t a cliché; he could be a party-loving frat boy who squandered his parents’ money. Or a rich jerk who spent his time dating models. He could have rebelled completely and struck out on his own.

But he was too complacent for that. Or so he thought. So he stayed and resented that his father’s money had opened so many doors for him that his own powers of door-opening had remained untested. That was why he loved food. Food was objective. No one could lie to you about the quality of your food based on your last name. Bad food was bad food and he could be sure of being judged fairly. The truth always came out.

It wasn’t only the reason he loved food.

Growing up his parents had been gone most of the time. Especially his mother. An actress turned lifestyle guru who spent her days jet-setting about meeting with “clients”. So, he’d spent most of his time in the kitchen with the help, messing around with the cook/nanny, a quiet Spanish guy named Federico. He’d been doing it since before he could remember. Food was where he felt safe and in control and throughout his life, teenage years included, he’d gone to the kitchen when things had gotten bad. He’d worked through teenage angst and the pain of his parents’ eventual divorce with his hands covered in flour and sugar. He’d gone through his first breakup and sworn off love forever by tempering chocolate. And he’d learned about himself and the world by learning about the properties of rising bread and the right techniques for piping rosettes and woodland creatures on celebratory cakes.

It was his single-mindedness that saved him. And his love of peace that helped transport him into another world. He could happily think about nothing and no one for hours on end except his work and food, and emerge from it rested and calmer than before.

It was his all.


End file.
